NUMBER 10 HIGH STREET, CARRICKFERGUS – A LATE MEDIEVAL MERCHANT FAMILY AND ITS BUILDINGS

Ulster Journal of Archaeology, Vol 78, 2023

NUMBER 10 HIGH STREET, CARRICKFERGUS – A LATE MEDIEVAL MERCHANT FAMILY AND ITS BUILDINGS

PAUL LOGUE and CIARA MacMANUS paul.logue@communities-ni.gov.uk; ciara@farrimondmacmanus.co.uk

Measured survey and excavation at a building on High Street, Carrickfergus, once thought to be modern, have been combined with historical evidence to date its origins to at least the mid-16th century and identify it as a house belonging to the Dobbin merchant family. For over 350 years, from at least 1400 to the late 1700s, the Dobbins played a prominent role in the social and economic ambit of Carrickfergus, occupying important positions there such as constable of the crown castle, mayor, and sheriff. A repaired and adapted late 17th-century roof was uncovered, along with part of a later 17th-century scale-and-platt staircase. The original construction dates of both the house and the Dobbin tower house next door have been placed in the early to mid-1500s, but they may well be earlier.

INTRODUCTION

This paper gives the archaeological results of a building regeneration project on a property located at number 10 High Street, Carrickfergus, Co Antrim (Fig 1). The building underwent carefully designed and managed construction works as part of the Carrickfergus Townscape Heritage Initiative (THI). Aimed at restoring pride in the historic townscape of Carrickfergus, the THI was funded by Heritage Lottery, Mid and East Antrim Borough Council and the Northern Ireland Housing Executive. Building owners (Elaine and Kim Hunter in the case of number 10) also funded the works and are to be congratulated on their efforts to help regenerate the town. Over four years, restoration schemes were carried out on ten buildings throughout the town centre and were combined with archaeological examination in order that any early fabric could be identified and preserved as far as possible. The works at number 10 were expertly designed and managed by Stephen Salley (HBK Architects) over the period 2020–22 and saw the replacement of many inappropriate features with traditional sympathetic materials. Original features such as lathand-plaster ceilings and floorboards were retained and used as far as possible, and some internal 16th/17th- century stonework and timber beams have been left exposed to acknowledge the building’s heritage. A late 17th-century staircase was uncovered and integrated into the design and 19thcentury wallpaper also conserved in situ. The progress of the regeneration works allowed measured survey of many parts of the building along with limited archaeological excavation. The results of these have been combined with historical research on the Dobbin family that owned and occupied this

and other High Street buildings from at least AD 1400 through to the late 1700s. It follows on from a paper on the next-door Dobbin family tower house, now Dobbins Inn hotel at number 9 High Street, published recently by Laura Patrick in this journal (Patrick 2020).

BACKGROUND

In the period c 1180–1205 the Anglo-Norman knight John de Courcy, conqueror and ruler of eastern Ulster, founded a castle on a volcanic rock jutting out into Belfast Lough. That rock was known as Carraig Fhearghasa (the Rock of Fergus) and may well have been an earlier Gaelic stronghold. De Courcy became palatine earl of Ulster and founded a town running along the shoreline from the castle, probably surrounded by a ditch and earthen bank. Both were taken from him by King John in 1210, passing into crown hands until 1227 when they were granted to Hugh de Lacy (Robinson 1986, 2). Burgesses were recorded in 1221 and the town referenced as a ‘vill’ in 1226 (ibid). The town church, St Nicholas’ was probably founded by de Courcy, but de Lacy added a Franciscan friary at the eastern end of town c 1230–40 (ibid, 10). The town developed as a trade centre within eastern Ulster and the evidence of material culture archaeologically excavated within the urban core points to what Philip Robinson (ibid, 3) has described as ‘a considerable richness of urban life’ throughout the 1200–1400s. By the 15th century the earldom of Ulster had largely collapsed to a small core of lands surrounding the town of Carrickfergus and various parts of what is now eastern Co Down. The core of lands around Carrickfergus was largely made up of what had come to be known as the County of

Carrickfergus, and the lands there were divided amongst those born into, or adopted as, Carrickfergus citizens. Lands were held at rent from the town corporation. The size of shares normally depended upon the status of an individual, with wealthier and more powerful families, or individuals, controlling larger areas that could be further divided and sub-rented on to others in the town.

During the 16th century we have three illustrations of Carrickfergus from which to draw evidence of the buildings and layout. We shall refer to them as maps, which may be lending them a description that is not wholly accurate, they being depictions set down for a variety of reasons to inform higher officials in Dublin and London. To these can be added what is likely to be a more

accurate town map of 1685 by Thomas Philips (National Library of Ireland, MS 3137 (42)), who also added a cartouche showing a general view of the castle and many town buildings from the shoreline at the north-east end of the settlement.

All three earlier maps show what is now called High Street as the main thoroughfare leading from the main castle to a marketplace and terminating in the east at the Franciscan friary. The town was by then surrounded by a ditch and earthen ramparts that were, as evidenced by the maps, in the process of being replaced by stone walling. Apart from the churches, ramparts and castle, the main features shown on these depictions were the tower houses that formed the dwellings of the upper levels of town society. The map of c 1560 (BL Cotton Augustus I ii 42) shows twelve towers, that of 1567 (drawn by

Fig 1 Site location.

Robert Lythe: Trinity College Dublin, MS1209 (26)) shows fourteen, and the latest map (National Archives (TNA), MPF 1/98, normally dated to c 1596 (Robinson 1986, 13 and map 4) but which we suggest below is of c 1575–85) depicts fifteen tower houses within the town. The latest map is used as the base for our Fig 2. ‘Tower house’ may not be the correct term for some of these buildings but we will not debate that here. At the eastern end of town, close to the friary, was a tower known as the Tholsel (1 on Fig 2), a building of three stories labelled on the 1567 Robert Lythe map as an old gatehouse or prison. Lythe drew what must be a blocked gateway through the Tholsel, placing its use as a gatehouse back into the 1400s perhaps, or even earlier. It may be that de Lacy erected it as a statement stone gatehouse in the otherwise earthwork defences, something not uncommon elsewhere in the medieval world (Creighton 2006). In doing so he was perhaps intending the town to be predominantly approached from the east, where visitors would pass the stone

buildings of the friary on their right before entering through a stone gate and proceeding up High Street towards the church and the marketplace in front of his castle. The Tholsel was used as a prison during the 1500s and 1600s when the ground floor housed criminals, the first floor had rooms for the jailers and debtors, and the uppermost floor accommodated the mayor’s courts and assizes (McSkimin 2009, 147). The third floor was also the location of assembly gatherings of the elected town officials, and where the mayor was elected. For this reason, it was also sometimes referred to as the Mayoralty Castle (ibid). However, it seems to have been most commonly referred to as Castle Worragh/Worraigh, which was recorded as ‘Wyrol’ by Lythe. Throughout this paper Irish family names and place-names have been arrived at through consultation with Déaglán Ó Doibhlin, Irish language Officer for Mid Ulster District Council. One of the authors (PL) works regularly with him, and the method of derivation used is one combining phonetic sound with the local,

Fig 2 Tower houses and other buildings shown on the c 1575–85 map of Carrickfergus. Tower houses are marked with numbered tags, some other houses/buildings with letters, and known Dobbin properties of both kinds are marked in red. The key gives family and forenames where identified. The predominant sources used for identifications are the Records of Carrickfergus (ROC), McSkimin (2009, passim but particularly 145–53), Robinson (1986), and the various maps mentioned above.

archaeological, and historical context. The reason being that working from phonetics alone can ignore context and lead to correct-sounding but debatable derivations. Using this method, Worragh/Worraigh appears to best derive from the Irish word borrach, meaning ‘a proud or pretentious person’, and so give Caisleán a’ Bhorraigh (‘proud person’s castle’) as a less polite version of Mayoralty Castle used by the ordinary citizens who spent their lives literally looking up to the people in the upper floors of the tower houses and the third floor of the Tholsel. As the Tholsel/Castle Worraigh was first a gatehouse and then a public building it was not a private residence, so possible links to a phonetically similar family name were discounted by us when searching for a derivation. From McSkimin (2009, 24,152) and the Lythe map of 1567 we know that at least three other tower houses in the town also had Irish names. Patrick Savage’s tower (10 on Fig 2) had the name Crannach Bábhúin (‘stake fence of the bawn’) associated with it, one of the Wills castles (11 on Fig 2) was known as Caisleán Maol (‘round topped castle’), and the tower next to that (12 on Fig 2) was known as Macha na Cúlach (‘cattle yard of the corner’). The use of Irish for place-names within the town and surrounding lands is a dominant theme throughout the town records of the 1500s and 1600s, strongly suggesting a bilingual society with English being the language of administration and the crown, but Irish being the day-to-day language. Both Macha na Cúlach and Crannach Bábhúin suggest names related to enclosures for cattle or other stock, and they may be a naming convention derived from driving animals into the town for slaughter or export. For Caisleán Maol we discounted the meaning ‘unroofed castle’ (coming from the ‘bald/roofless’ sense of maol), as the castle is consistently depicted as having a roof. We then took the connotation of maol to be ‘round-topped’ because (as depicted on the 1575–85 map) its roofing could be described as such, being turret-like in contrast to all of the other towers in the town, barring Macha na Cúlach and the rear stair tower to William Piers’s house (14 on Fig 2).

Up until the later 1500s to early 1600s Carrickfergus society was dominated by a number of families, such as Russell, Savage, Wills, Sendall and Dobbin, who claimed descent from medieval English roots. These same family names are marked as owners of nine of the 14 tower houses shown on the 1567 map. At that time, what we may call ‘New’ English soldiers, adventurers and administrators began arriving, as the crown aimed to establish greater control in Ulster. Some of these men stayed on in the town following their military service, often marrying into local families, and gaining prominent

positions within society there. Overtly Gaelic families, such as the O’Cahans, also gained burgess, clerk and sheriff status within the town, showing the degree of integration prevalent in the small urban community. Carrickfergus society was constituted as a corporation that included everyone in the town, from the mayor down to what was known as the ‘commonalty’ or ‘freemen’ (Day & McWilliams 1996, 34–45). From these people a council was elected to include numbers of aldermen, burgesses, two sheriffs, a town recorder, a town clerk, and other offices such as a water bailiff to control the harbour. Normally in June of each year the town elected a mayor from amongst the aldermen, who then took up post at Michaelmas for one year. From amongst the commonalty the town elected two sheriffs, although one of these could be nominated by the incoming mayor. For the year after standing down the ex-mayor became head of the town merchants’ guild (ibid). The town council created social and economic by-laws to regulate behaviour and also made up the officers of various courts established to enforce judgments and order throughout the town and county.

THE BUILDING

During the regeneration project at number 10 High Street a measured and photographic survey was carried out during the strip-out phase of construction work. The aim of the survey was to record the geometry of the structural elements of the building once the modern internal fixtures and fittings were removed, ie outer wall thickness, floor joists where visible, roof members where accessible, as well as exposed building fabric, which would all assist in the interpretation of the building over time.

The measured survey was carried out at various stages of construction using a combination of Leica P40, Leica RTC360 and Leica BLK360 laser scanners collecting colourised point cloud data, registered to a local grid and datum. Point density for each scan was ‘medium resolution’, ie 6.3mm @ 10m. Point cloud registration was performed through a combination of targeted scans (using overlapping 4-inch black and white targets) collected with the Leica P40 scanner as a core scan dataset throughout the main building and rear elevation. This was then augmented with ancillary scans of the external front elevation using a Leica RTC360, and of the internal roof structure using the Leica BLK360. The resulting dataset was integrated as a fully registered 3D point cloud of the accessible areas of the building which could then be intelligently sliced along the three vertical axes to produce scaled plans, elevations, and sectional drawings of the building. The measured survey was supported with a

3 Front elevation showing stone and brick work; most of the ground-floor frontage had been previously removed to facilitate retail unit doors and windows.

photographic record of areas where the building fabric had been exposed as part of the construction works. It did not prove possible to survey the entire fabric due to the demands of the works, with scaffolding and health and safety issues etc necessarily obscuring some areas. We also undertook the archaeological excavation of two small trenches on the ground floor, aimed at trying to gather more dating evidence for building phases.

Measured survey results

The survey confirmed that the structure at number 10 High Street took the form of a trapezoid with an average internal floor plan measuring 13.5m in length by 5.88m in width at ground level, increasing to a maximum of 6.64m in width at first- and second-floor levels. This increase in building depth at height was the result of a narrowing of the front and rear walls from 0.7m at ground level to 0.5m at first-floor level and to 0.33m at second-floor level. The visible ground-floor walling was formed from uncoursed roughly hewn stones (with dressed quoins), partially extending upwards to the first floor at the two ends of the front elevation, with the midsection of the front first-floor level (and entire

second-floor level) constructed in red brick (Fig 3). In the rear of the building the stone walling extended up to first-floor level with red brick coursing above at second-floor level. Number 10 is shown to be in existence as a single-storey to storey-and-a-half building on the map of c 1560, leading us to conclude (in association with the survey and excavation results) that the ground-floor walling (Phase 1) dates to that period. Phase 2 saw a stonebuilt lengthening and heightening of the Phase 1 building to two and a half storeys, ie two storeys with a garret above. A number of now blocked windows along the rear elevation indicate the original fenestration layout of the Phase 2 stone walling at first-floor level. Both stone walling phases had Cultra sandstone quoins inside and out, coming from a shoreline quarry source across Belfast Lough in Co Down first opened in the medieval period. The Phase 2 stone building probably saw the addition of a rear square stair tower placed symmetrically in the centre of the rear wall to create a T-plan house. However, as discussed below, that return may also date to Phase 1 and, if so, the purchase of Cultra quoins was probably then restricted to Phase 1 with any Phase 2 usage being due to the recycling of

Fig

Fig 4 Floor plans; the ground floor was largely out of bounds during the project as it continued in retail use throughout.

Phase 1 stones. The central rear stairwell measured 3 x 3.5m internally and its walling also narrowed as height increased, from 0.75m at the base to 0.4m at the top. Unlike the walling in the rest of the building, the stair tower survived in stone right up to secondfloor level. The stair tower remains showed that the Phase 2 second floor was a garret ‘half-storey’ rather than a full storey (Fig 4). Phase 3 saw the garret extended upwards to become a full third storey. No cellar was discovered for any of the phases.

Access to the stairwell at ground level had been removed in recent times when it was reworked as part of a modern open-plan office unit. Access at first-floor level had been closed off with a modern stud wall belonging to another retail unit. That stud wall was removed as a part of the strip-out of the building during our project and it was only then that the full extent of the stairwell was realised. The original stairwell access at first-floor level survived as a 3m-wide opening defined by Cultra stone quoins on either side and with a large squaresectioned timber lintel across the opening (Fig 5). The lintel gave a dendrochronological date (supplied by David Brown of QUB) of ‘after 1542’, which although not definitive is very similar to the three

dates obtained from the Dobbins Inn tower house next door. The three Dobbins Inn dendrochronological samples (also undertaken by David Brown) came from above the tower house entrance and two fireplace lintels. They dated, respectively, to ‘after 1529’, 1538+/-9 and 1542 +/9, so our ‘after 1542’ could possibly fall in with them to be evidence of works occurring within both the tower house and this adjoining building in the 1540s to early 1550s.

Within the stairwell the extant remains of a late 17th-century staircase (Fig 6) ran from the first floor to the garret floor, which is an extremely rare surviving architectural feature in Ireland. Although the supporting structure, treads and risers survived intact, the handrails and balusters survived only from the second landing up to garret height. It is assumed that the staircase originally continued to groundfloor level where it was removed, we believe, during the 1980s. It was examined by Terence ReevesSmyth and we owe the following text to him. The stair is formed in a dogleg scale-and-platt style with the structural form of the staircase and its confinement to a separate rear tower representing a standard ‘English’ early 17th- century Jacobean

Fig 5 Sections through the building.

feature also occasionally found in late 17th-century houses. An important and distinctive feature of the staircase, common to most scale-and-platt 16th- and 17th-century staircases in Britain, is its use of the ‘close string’ form, where a diagonal beam (the outer string) masks the steps by enclosing the ends of the stair treads and risers and supports the balustrade spindles. The square-sectioned oak newel posts in the Carrickfergus house are also typical of this period; in this case they are sturdy and imposing with apse-headed sunken panels on each face. Newel posts were typically the pièce de résistance of these early staircases and commonly had decorative carved finials and pendants. In the grander houses these could take the form of heraldic beasts, but in lesser houses such as this one, the newels are more likely to have been surmounted by something simpler, perhaps a large wooden ball finial or some form of decorative capital; the hole into which such a finial had been fixed can be clearly seen on the top newel of our stair. The balusters at number 10 High Street have square-cut sections at top and bottom, clearly hand-made, with circular cup-like bulbous protrusions regularly and closely spaced down the column. These individually made balusters appear to be a form of the twist-and-turn Solomonic column

that enjoyed great popularity during the 1650–1700 era. Wooden balusters typically tend to follow design precedents in woodworking at the time – notably the spindles of the back of chairs. It seems a little odd that the High Street examples are hand carved, as wood turning was surely widely practised in the town. It is hard to think of a reason why they were not turned; possibly it relates in some manner to cost, with hand cutting being cheaper than turning, although why that would be the case does not seem clear either. On stylistic grounds, the balusters could date anywhere from 1630 to the 1680s. The other important distinguishing feature of the High Street staircase is the massive thickness of the handrails, which like much else with this staircase are handcut. In height they are about a fifth that of the balusters and moulded to resemble three tiers of timbers on top of each other, which is indicative of a date no later than 1690, at the very latest. In general terms, the closest parallel to the High Street staircase is that at Richhill, Co Armagh, where an open-newel staircase is confined within a tower to the rear of the house. The Richhill stair has been dendrochronologically dated, by David Brown at QUB, to 1663. Like High Street it has square quarter-landings; its balusters are different, but it

Fig 6 The restored stairs, now presented as part of the building; looking down from the first landing to the stair tower entrance with ‘after 1542’ beam above, exposed Cultra sandstone quoins visible on the right and the first floor beyond; looking up to the second landing, then rising again to the once garret floor, now full third storey.

does have a similar thick handrail and newels, the latter surmounted by a decorative finial. Except for Richhill (and now number 10 High Street) we know of no other surviving examples of such staircases in external square towers in Ireland.

Two other staircases have similar features to the High Street example. One is the dog-leg staircase at Galgorm Castle, which lies within the body of the house and dates anywhere from the early 1630s to the 1690s (the exact date of that house has not yet been established). The balusters and newels at Galgorm are broadly similar to those at High Street, but are more professionally made and finished, and less massive in form. The finials and pendants at Galgorm have a circular bun-like form, which was the most likely form of the finials and pendants at High Street. The other similar staircase to High Street is closer to Carrickfergus, at Red Hall, Co Antrim, and is also a dog-leg stair within the body of the house. Like High Street, Galgorm and Richhill, the Red Hall balusters are housed in a continuous diagonal beam or ‘closed string’. The handrail and newels at Red Hall are similar, but

again more finely made than High Street, and the newel finials are also of a bun-like form. The date of the Red Hall staircase has not been established; it is often believed to date to the 1630s, but QUB dendrochronological dating of the roof suggests the 1680s. Whereas other late 17th-century urban staircases do survive in Ireland, notably in Dublin with examples on Aungier Street, the High Street, Carrickfergus, example appears to stand out by being located within its own dedicated rear return.

On the first-floor gable-end walls (and in the roof space against Dobbins Inn) evidence was clearly visible for the Phase 2 roofing. The evidence came in the form of a 4.48m-tall ‘roof scar’ indicating a steep roof pitch with an internal angle of 52° (Fig 7). On the Dobbins Inn side it was evident that our building was built against the tower house using its walling for a gable and inserting the roof timbers into the tower house walls (Fig 8). Within the raised roof space of the Phase 3 (and after) number 10 High Street, a section of the Dobbins Inn walling retained its original external render as shown in the left-hand side of Fig 8. This

occurred because the Phase 3 heightening of number 10 brought that section of walling into the raised attic of the building. To the right of the rendered area on Fig 8 is the Phase 2 roof scar rising from left to right, then a chimney stack, then an unrendered section of tower house walling, then the rear portion of the Phase 2 roof scar rising right to left and then, finally, more rendered tower house walling, although to a far lesser extent than the street side. Evidence

of other roof phases are visible in Figs 7 and 8 above the Phase 2 roof scar, referencing changes carried out in the 19th and 20th centuries. On the opposite gable against number 12 High Street a small section of exposed quoin stones on the front elevation of number 12 suggests that the number 10 Phase 2 building was extended and heightened against its neighbour there, infilling the entire space between the tower house at number 9 and the building at

Fig 7 Evidence on gable walls for Phase 2 roofing.

Fig 8 Scan data of gable-end wall in roof space against Dobbins Inn tower house.

number 12. During the 21st-century regeneration works, removal of the floorboards and ceiling panels exposed timber structural elements of the Phase 2 building, effectively an oak frame that sat within the stone building supporting the roof and flooring. Large, squared timber ceiling and floor beams extended along the spine of the Phase 2 building, into which a series of parallel floor joists were tied at 0.3m intervals. Each of the larger beams had been marked with a carpenter’s assembly mark, ie a Roman numeral with a matching number marked on the floor joists, indicating that the structure had been cut and pre-assembled before being disassembled and constructed again at number 10 (Fig 9). The alignment of the flooring joists and supporting central beams was consistent between the first and second floors, which we take to indicate contemporaneity of construction as one Phase 2 heightening of the Phase 1 building. The QUB dendrochronological dates for the flooring timbers vary and all fall into the ‘after’ category. For example sample Q12752, taken from a flooring joist on the first floor, gave a date of ‘after 1639’, which in reality is likely to be no earlier than the 1660s, and sample Q12752, taken from a second-floor joist, gave a date of ‘after 1668’, which (allowing for missing rings) may indicate a date in the later 1670s but perhaps later. In general the ranges are, with

reasonable confidence, consistent with a general date for Phase 2 in the second half of the 17th century. However, sample Q12749, taken from a Phase 2 roof purlin reused in Phase 3, produced a much more accurate date of 1685 +/- 9 years, giving a range of 1676–1694 for Phase 2. Oak dendrochronology dates gathered by QUB from 17th-century structures in Ulster tend to cluster before the 1640s, then in a range c 1655–88 and a final phase c 1695–1720 (David Brown, pers comm, 2023). These ranges obviously correspond with the troubles periods of the 1640s/50s and the later Williamite wars c 1688–91, with periods of activity either side when society had the funding and confidence to build. This helps us place our Phase 2 most likely in the later 1670s to 1680s. Carrickfergus was a hub of the Williamite wars and was besieged in 1689, placing our Phase 2 before that. Purlin Q12749 had been removed from its original position when the roof had been further heightened by raising it by around 1m sometime (judging by associated brickwork) in the later 17th/early 18th century. This Phase 3 heightening involved the addition of red brick to the Phase 2 stone walling, remodelling the front and rear elevations and turning the garret storey into a fullheight storey with roof space above. During this heightening, rafters that originally fitted into timbers on the Phase 2 garret floor were simply moved up

Fig 9 Carpentry numerals on oak beam.

with the purlins to create the higher roof resting on the new red brick walling.

The basic configuration of the building appears to have remained unchanged from the late 1600s/early 1700s through to the beginning of the 19th century with the T-plan lasting until the mid1800s. Based on map evidence, between 1832 and 1857 the building was widened at the rear through the addition of a corner stairwell structure adjacent to the earlier stair tower. Our survey showed that this later stairwell appears to have initially gone only to first-floor level and was constructed from a mix of red brick and stone with window openings facing a narrow yard adjacent to the rear of the Dobbins Inn building. It is likely that the central chimney breasts were also added at this stage, the earlier ones being on the gable ends. At some point, full-height canted bay windows were added to the building frontage and the final phase of 19th-century works seems to have been the removal of these bays to create a flatfaced frontage once again. That final phase of works also saw the insertion of the window configuration which survives to the present day and a heightening of the mid-19th-century rear stairwell up to the second-floor level. This extension saw the creation of a new upper room at that height. The heightening of the later stairwell required modifications to the building’s roof and also a heightening of the 17thcentury stairwell, creating the building design (barring any 20th-century retail unit works) that we encountered during the project.

Archaeological excavation

Trench 1 was located at the base of the rear Phase 2 stairwell and confirmed that it was constructed of uncoursed stone on a boulder foundation. The remains of a medieval pit feature were identified beneath the foundation, which would be expected along the street frontage of Carrickfergus, known to have been founded by the early 1200s. Two sherds of pottery recovered from the basal deposit within the trench have been dated to the period 1300–1500 (Jonathan Barkley, pers comm, 2023). Trench 2 was located at the base of a later opening in the building’s 0.7m- wide rear Phase 1 wall. A later red brick wall hindered the excavation, but a small sherd of pottery dating to 1500–1600s was recovered from the backfill deposit surrounding the stone wall base.

Archaeological monitoring of two service pits was undertaken at the front of the ground-floor retail unit, located at each corner wall of the shop unit. Excavation of Service Pit 1, at the corner with the adjacent Dobbins Inn building, revealed a later brick surface below c 0.5m of modern infill material. This brick surface was placed on top of an earlier stone rubble wall, and the section fronting on to High

Street confirmed the continuation of this uncoursed stone rubble wall construction down to a lower boulder foundation. The stone walling uncovered in these pits is likely to be the Phase 1 frontage walling where it had been removed above by 19th/20thcentury openings. Supervision of Service Pit 2 did not reveal much more in the way of construction detail, this section of the building having been greatly disturbed by the construction of the modern shop front. Consequently, the measured survey and excavation had identified several phases of building from at least the mid-1500s that we could attempt to correlate with historical research.

THE DOBBIN FAMILY

c 1400–1500

Local tradition has it that the Dobbin family came to Carrickfergus with either John de Courcy or Hugh de Lacy. While our research has not been able to verify that tradition, we have not been able to disprove it either. The first official record we are aware of that links a member of the Dobbin family with Carrickfergus relates to a Peter Dobyn being constable of the castle in 1400 when his salary is said to have included ‘the profits of the water mills of Carrickfergus’ (Day & McWilliams 1996, 43), indicating that the town possessed more than one such mill. We can suppose that the water mill between the Franciscan friary and the shoreline was one of these, and the 1567 map marks the location of another mill along what is probably now Lancasterian Street. Dobbin was still constable in 1402–03 when he was licensed to bring corn from Drogheda (McNeill 1981, 6). As the constables of the castle were English (ibid, 7; Day & McWilliams 1996, 43), this places Peter Dobbin within that ethnicity and so supports local tradition that the Dobbin family background was non-native and higher status military. The Carrickfergus Dobbin family’s patronymic use of ‘Fitz’, as noted below, also suggests an Anglo-Norman background. Peter’s constableship ceased by 1407–08 (McNeill 1981, 7), and so the dating of his tenancy falls within the period in which early tower houses were beginning to appear within the Irish landscape; perhaps, if we assume Peter Dobbin stayed on in Carrickfergus after his constableship ceased, he may have built the first Dobbin tower house there.

1500–1600

The next Dobbin we can be certain about was the Stephen marked as owner of a High Street tower house in the town on the Lythe picture map of 1567. We must be careful here, as detailed reading of the Carrickfergus records shows that the town castles were sometimes referred to using the names of

deceased/past owners. Despite this we can use the map evidence to reasonably place Stephen Dobbin in the 1500s. He may have been born in the first decades of the century if he was indeed dead by 1567. However, to allow time for him to have been socially prominent enough to have had his name appended to the building, he is unlikely to have been born later than c 1540. Stephen’s tower house was on the northern side of High Street and now lies within the fabric of Dobbins Inn at number 9 (6 on Fig 2). The dendrochronological dating of the internal timbers within the Dobbin castle at number 9 High Street places either its initial construction, or a phase of renovation works, within Stephen’s lifetime. That the number 9 dendrochronological dates came from the entrance and fireplaces may well show that Stephen remodeled a pre-existing tower house doorway and added gable end fireplaces c 1540–50. Two other Dobbin towers were located on the opposite southern side of High Street at number 33, with one occupying a location on the street frontage and a circular example closer to the shoreline at the rear of the property (2 and 3 on Fig 2). Running between these towers was a large house at right angles to the street frontage (A on Fig 2), which must also have belonged to the Dobbin family. Consequently, most of that property running back from High Street to the shoreline was filled with Dobbin buildings.

In 1571–72 a William Dobbin served as sheriff of Carrickfergus during the mayoralty of Edward Brown (McSkimin 2009, 409), when ‘for the better strengthening of the Towne’ it was ordered that inhabitants living by the waterside should erect defences at the back of their properties beside the sea (ROC 1569–1747, 2). Burgesses John Flood and Cornelius O’Cahan were appointed to collect fines from those that did not comply and so allow the town assembly to appoint others to undertake the ‘building up of the same work’ (ibid). This William Dobbin was a prominent figure in Carrickfergus, serving as mayor five times in the late 16th century. McSkimin (2009, 147–52) identifies tower house 2 on Fig 2 as belonging to a William Dobbin around 1600 (most likely this William Dobbin), the site of which lies under modern-day number 33 High Street (Simpson & Dickson 1981, 84; Robinson 1986, 11).

A Brenin (Bréanainn) Dobbin is mentioned as a witness for the prosecution in a trial of one Thomas McCarroll on 17 March 1574. McCarroll was alleged to have assaulted the Carrickfergus water bailiff (probably John Lugg) responsible for regulating maritime trading and fishing vessels in the port. The name Brenin suggests a Gaelic influence, possibly linked to intermarriage. The other witnesses in the trial were ‘Thomas Cockran

(Cochran) Scotsman … Phelim McGee (Feilim Mag Aoidh) and Donough McGoan (Donncha Mac Gabhann)’, demonstrating the ethnically mixed, polyglot nature of the town in the 16th century.

The town defences were again discussed in October 1575 (ROC 1569–1747, 7) when the stretch running from Carrickfergus Castle north eastwards to the bastion known as the ‘mill mount’ – located close to the shoreline beside the friary – was agreed to be walled in stone financed by the crown. This stretch was probably the first constructed in stone because the earth and sod rampart there was subjected to constant tide encroachment; Richard Dobbs, writing in 1683, noted that the tide came right up to the town walls along the strand between the castle and the location of the mill bastion (Hill 1873, 385). This new wall would have taken up some of the space adjacent to the Dobbin circular tower to the rear of William Dobbin’s castle at modern-day 33 High Street. An upstanding, 5mstretch of this 16th-century town wall survives today between Marine Highway and High Street; previously thought to be of the early 17th century, it is here identified for the first time as being of c 1575–80. The same stretch is depicted by Philips, in 1685 (National Library of Ireland, MS 3137 (42)), in a different style (not crenellated) from the adjacent crenellated 17th-century walling erected by Sir Arthur Chichester in the period 1608–15. Chichester’s walling was on a different line to the Tudor town walls, as it was erected outside them, so expanding the walled town (Ó Baoill 2008, 36–7). As no land could be gained at the seafront, it seems that there was no reason to replace the 16th-century walling there. Consequently, the difference shown by Philips most likely points to the seafront walling at Marine Highway being 16th-century.

On 24 March 1576 alderman Thomas Stephenson died; he had been a force in the town, holding the mayoralty and building one or two defensible town houses (c 1560–67) at present-day 35–37 High Street, adjacent to the castle of William Dobbin at 33 High Street (Simpson & Dickson 1981, 84). The Stephenson family may also have owned another High Street tower house (4 on Fig 2). April 1576 in Carrickfergus saw Myhill Savage, John Savage, and others ‘fined for neglecting ther [sic] duty in not answering to assist the Maior being misused in the Streate by Captaine Loouyd & his Soldiours’ (ROC 1569–1747, 7). The mention of a ‘Myhill Savage’ records the phonetic sound of the Irish Mícheál. Savage was mentioned again in 1578 as sheriff ‘Mychaell Savadge’ and in 1581 as ‘Mychell’, both using the sound for the English form Michael. The use of the two forms of the forename again demonstrates the intertwined nature of the

ethnicities and languages in Ulster and Carrickfergus of the time; the Savages clearly used Gaelic names and spoke Irish, despite being an ancient family who saw themselves firmly as Old English. The mayor misused by the soldiers was William Piers, exconstable of the castle on good terms with the crown after long useful service, and he quickly procured orders from the lord deputy for punishment of the ringleaders. Soon after, to strengthen control of the local economic front, Piers built a fish market beside the castle (ibid) and, in May 1576, introduced new rules on the prosecution and recovery of debt (ibid, 8). In those rules it was stated that no one, ‘freeman nor foreigner’, could be arrested for debt or trespass while in the house of a Carrickfergus ‘freeman’, but that they could be arrested in the street, or in the house of a foreigner. This would seem to create safe havens for people within the house of a free citizen, and also implies that at least some of the housing we see on the early maps was used, perhaps only on a temporary basis, by what were deemed foreigners to the town. Such regulations and records give us a glimpse into the often complex web of relations the townsfolk created and maintained to survive both economically and in terms of keeping the everyday peace. While some of those labelled as foreigners may well have been fisherman and traders, others are likely to have been the Gaelic élite. Traditionally the Clandeboye O’Neills are said to have had a town house/tower house in Carrickfergus (McSkimin 2009, 151) and that they visited on occasion bringing an influx of welcome cash and goods to pay for hospitality. Turlough Luineach O’Neill of Tyrone is recorded as having spent hundreds of pounds on similar stays in late 16th-century Newry. The importance placed upon Carrickfergus by the Clandeboye O’Neills is shown in some lines within a poem included in a compilation of 1680. The poem is much earlier than the compilation, as it was composed by Dubhthnach Mac Eochadha, a Leinster poet who had stayed with Aodh Buidhe, lord of Clandeboye, for some time in the early 1400s. According to Seamus Clarke (2015), Mac Eochadha sent the poem to Aodh Buidhe wishing he could be back with him, and remembering that A house where I would be made welcome among my dear friends lies to the east beside the harbour where Aodh lives among his learned men.

In the harbour of Carrickfergus is the centre of his chieftainship, the people for whom I would forsake all other houses throughout Ireland.

If I were to ask permission of him to pay a visit sometime, if Aodh were to refuse me where would I turn my face?

I had no journey before me throughout the Springtime further than to go with Aodh from the dwelling enclosure to the strand side to see the hurling.

The poem places an O’Neill dwelling structure within Carrickfergus and the mention of ‘his learned men’ may refer to the Ó Dreáin learned family discussed below. It also appears to place the O’Neill in a comfortable manner where no contention was needed to gain access to the town. While it may be partly a device seeking to illustrate Clandeboye O’Neill dominance over the town and crown castle there, it may also simply be showing a more integrated society than we normally believe.

The Dobbin family enter the records again on 25 June 1576, when William Dobbin was elected mayor by the mayor, sheriffs, burgesses and commonality (ROC 1569–1747, 8). William’s term, as for all elected higher officials of the town assembly, was to begin at Michaelmas (then mid-October) and last for one whole year. Just before William took up office the assembly voted to restrict the selling or movement of hides out of Carrickfergus by individuals, unless the transaction was to the benefit of the town. May 1577 saw William sign off on monies that had been paid by the previous mayor, William Piers, towards the ‘cutting of timber for our church, to the carpenters, and otherwise for that work’ (ibid, 10). This refers to repairs undertaken to St Nicholas’ Church, following what we may assume was damage that occurred to its fabric during the O’Neill firing of the town in 1573. After William Dobbin’s signature came those of Richard Sendall, Henry Wills, James Russell, and Nicholas Wills, presumably all aldermen. During his term of office, William Dobbin seems to have relied heavily on the Wills, Sendall and Russell families to pass town business. In August 1577 Dobbin signed off on a record to the effect that his predecessor William Piers had paid the monies provided by the lord deputy to those freeholders who held land on the seaside running from the castle to the mill bastion (ibid, 10). The money was paid to the relevant freeholders, at the rate of six shillings per foot, to have the town wall constructed on their lands. This differs to the five shillings per foot mentioned at the time of agreeing the wall in 1575 and was questioned again, presumably by the crown, in 1579. This may reflect the time-honoured occurrence of builds never costing what the original budget had allowed, or potential corruption, with the queries from the crown resulting in the details having to be assured by later mayors. William Piers was also questioned about his payment of monies on other projects and, in January 1578, William Dobbin acted

as an alderman member of the town council to witness mayor Nicholas Wills sign off to the effect that Piers had indeed paid out the requisite monies to have St Nicholas’ church repaired; the works being carried out in stone and timber to the chancel roof, ‘gavell end’ and the porch (ibid, 10). William Dobbin also witnessed the settlement of a legal suit between his relative James Dobbin and alderman James Russell (ibid, 10). James Dobbin had sued for £20, but the judgement was that Russell owed him £17, to be repaid in installments between February 1581 and August 1582. William Dobbin then served as mayor of Carrickfergus again in 1580–81, with another three terms in 1583, 1585 and 1588 (McSkimin 2009, 409).

James Dobbin was also a successful person, serving as a sheriff in 1582–83, 1587–88, 1589–90 and 1592–93 (ibid, 410–11). The 1592–93 mayoralty of John Dalway saw the court move back to the Tholsel/Castle Worragh after an unidentified period during which it had been based in St Nicholas’ Church (ROC 1569–1747, 12). The issue seems to have been that the Tholsel required a new roof and other unspecified repairs, probably necessitated by damage caused by water ingress due to the lack of roofing. Presumably, the church was the only other building in the town that was deemed to be large enough, suitably furnished and heated to allow a court to sit. One wonders why the dissolved friary buildings did not offer an alternative for the court. Their lack of use must have been due to either the friary space being taken up by troop accommodation or victual storage, or an issue to do with crown and town ownership, the friary having been taken over by the crown. In addition, we cannot rule out the possibility that some of the friary buildings were still being quietly occupied by Franciscans. That order was present in the Carrickfergus area in the 1620s when Franciscan records show a Father Paul O’Neill as being elected as superior of the monastery in August 1629 (Ó Baoill 2008, 63–4). O’Neill was responsible for having a gilt-silver communion chalice made for the congregation in 1632 (ibid). Ó

Baoill states that this was linked to a reestablishment of the Franciscans at Carrickfergus after the Dissolution, but perhaps they had never fully left. It also demonstrates the presence of a sizeable enough Catholic congregation.

Dalway’s term as mayor also saw West Street extended westwards from Market Place with new plots leased out for the building of lime-mortared stone houses (ROC 1569–1747, 13). That these stone houses were actually built seems evident in the record stating that their construction made West Street ‘fair and strong where before the most part thereof was in rotten and ruinous clay houses and

cottages’ (ibid). Through these works and other reforms Mayor Dalway, it was said, had brought the town ‘unto civility’. The mention of West Street being extended in 1592–93 with stone housing is critical to the dating of one of the town maps of Carrickfergus but has hitherto been ignored. That map (the base for our Fig 2) is normally dated to c 1596 (following Robinson 1986, map 6), but it includes no such extension of West Street and, therefore, must date to before 1592–93. In addition, the c 1596 date relies on the alleged fact that the church was unroofed at that time, but contemporary records show that the choir remained roofed in 1596 and it was the rest of the church that had become unroofed (McSkimin 2009, 202). So, as the c 1596 map shows the entire church to be unroofed, it cannot date to c 1596. Fortunately, we have two elements shown on the map which help establish a different date for it. One is that it shows a stone town wall running from the ‘Queen’s castle’ to the ‘mill mount’ area near the old Franciscan friary mentioned as being constructed and paid for in 1575–79. The second is that St Nicholas’ Church is shown roofless and we know that the roof was repaired by early 1578. Hence, the c.1596 map may actually date to the period 1575–77 and its creation may be tied to the above-mentioned queries raised by the crown about payments for works to the church and town walls at that time. As works to the church were still ongoing in the early 1580s, when more timber was required in 1581 (ibid), we should put a more comfortable range of c 1575–85 on the map.

Nicholas Wills succeeded Dalway as mayor, but died in post and was replaced by the Mícheál Savage reprimanded 17 years earlier for failing to protect William Piers against the brawling garrison soldiers. The town records for 1595 show monies paid by townsfolk for lands held in the commonwealth of Carrickfergus (McSkimin 2009, 14–15). William Dobbin is recorded as paying £2 for a whole share, James Dobbin £1 for a half-share and we are introduced to a Nicholas Dobbin who also paid £1 for a half-share. According to McSkimin, who used perches (2009, 299-300), a whole share equated to the modern units of 25.5 hectares or 63 acres, with half- or quarter-shares varying accordingly, and shares often consisting of a number of detached rather than consistent blocks. However, the divisions could vary depending on land quality, and over time became longer linear strips rather than the earlier blocks (ibid). Philip Robinson (1986, 4) includes a map marking some of the narrow land strips or ‘Divisions’, for so they are called, that the Carrickfergus lands were divided into.

A court case of 1599 gives us direct evidence of ethnic intermarriage in Carrickfergus, when we are

told that, following the death of their father, Carrickfergus homeowner William O’Draine (Ó Dreáin), his son and daughter, Shane and Enewerie (possibly Eithne Mháire), clashed over who should receive the house and back lands (ROC 1569–1747, 14). The house was divided in two and each party received half, but the case mentions that Eithne Mháire was married to a Henry Faye. In this case, it may be that Faye was the newcomer to the town, marrying into a Gaelic family that already held rights there. A Daniell Adrain is mentioned as a citizen of the town in 1577 (ibid, 10), and it is important to note that the house mentioned in 1599 was clearly a more substantial structure than the beehive dwellings normally attributed by modern writers to Gaelic inhabitants of the town. The Ó Dreáin family are recorded (https 2) as once being chiefs of the Calraidhe area of Co Roscommon, and erenaghs of Ardcarne near Boyle in the same county. However, they were displaced by the MacDermotts in the 13th–14th century and then moved to Co Antrim (ibid). As chiefs and erenaghs, the family would have been educated and literate, perhaps allowing them to take up employment with the Clandeboye O’Neills, the Franciscan friary in Carrickfergus, or within the secular town, and so explain their presence there; Robinson (1986, 3) mentions that one plot of town land was called the ‘Scribe’s Garden’. Philip Hoy (forthcoming, 157) firmly connects the Ó Dreáin family with the Clandeboye O’Neills, showing that three of them received pardons from Elizabeth I in 1602 alongside Shane McBrian O’Neill. Hoy (ibid) also identifies a rath located around 5km north-east of Carrickfergus, on what was Clandeboye O’Neill land prior to plantation, as the place called Oileán Uí Dhreáin used as a landholding boundary marker in 1609. These references support the theory that the family were learned, most likely performing a related function for the Clandeboye O’Neills from whom they held land in the area, probably since at least the 15th century.

1600–1630

That Carrickfergus would have been an attractive place to be allowed to settle in is shown in 1600 when the town introduced more restrictive measures to protect the rights of its citizens. Then, regulations were brought in that henceforth no one, even Carrickfergus citizens, could trade in the town unless they were a part of the local merchants’ guild, seemingly referred to as the Trinity Guild (ROC 1569–1747, 16–17). In a charter from Elizabeth I, the guild was referred to as the ‘free merchants of the staple’ (Day & McWilliams 1996, 38). The head of the Carrickfergus merchants’ guild was given the

title ‘Mayor of the Staple’ and was filled by each outgoing town mayor for one year after his term as town mayor (ibid). This may have been a way in which the guild could protect itself from the personal interests of incoming mayors. In addition, the 1600 guild rule decreed that no soldier or foreigner was permitted to sell goods within the liberties of the town. The town also then divided itself into wards led by various aldermen, with each ward being responsible for producing suitably armed men to defend the town, and also to make sure that the streets were cleaned every Friday or Saturday; fines were introduced to ensure compliance.

On 10 June 1601 Queen Elizabeth created a commission to examine and set the limits of the lands belonging to Carrickfergus. Geoffrey Fenton, a member of the Irish privy council and chief surveyor, was commanded to initiate the survey, and he passed it to a deputy surveyor Captain John Jephson (ROC 1569–1747, 19–22). Alongside Jephson the commission was made up of Carrickfergus residents Sir Arthur Chichester, John Dalway and Sir Fulke Conway, plus two others. The commissioners swore in a jury composed of 24 trusted locals who knew the lie of land. At least seven of the jury appear, from their names, to have been of Gaelic ethnicity. One wonders if this gives us an indication of the make-up of Carrickfergus society at that time, in that around one third of the ‘middle class’ were of Gaelic origin. The jury foreman was William Dobbin who must, we presume, have been regarded as the most senior trustworthy person for the task. The survey was completed and those freemen who had not yet paid for their right to be allotted lands around the town were asked to pay. Nicholas Dobbin was one of those who paid £1 (ibid, 23), presumably for a halfshare of land, which must have marked a rising degree of social status for him at that time. In 1603, a division of the liberty lands lying between the Copeland Water and the Woodburn River saw a ‘Mr Dobbin’ receive four quarter-shares to make a whole, and Nicholas Dobbin receive two quarters to make a half (ibid, 29). We must venture that the ‘Mr Dobbin’ mentioned was the eminent William who needed no forename attached to be sure of his identity. Several female landowners exist, named as widows. A record of the town land lying south-west of the Woodburn River was made in October 1606 (ibid, 29–32) and in it Margaret and Nicholas Dobbin are mentioned. Margaret appears to have been included as an owner in her own right, not having been recorded as inheriting as a widow when other women are labelled as such. This may be showing that Margaret brought lands into her marriage and that these were retained by her for

passing on to heirs as she willed, as was the case with the Alice Hill, née Dobbin, discussed below. More Dobbin land is mentioned in 1608 when William Dobbin was granted leases on lands to the west of the Woodburn River (west of Carrickfergus) and also a plot called Bullock’s Hall or Duff’s Garden east of the town where the railway now passes under the Larne Road close to Downshire Halt railway station (ROC 1600–1800, 188). In the same year Nicholas and Anthony Dobbin were mentioned as burgesses holding lands in the vicinity of present-day Carrickfergus Golf Club and Prince Andrew Way (ibid, 191, 249; and see the map in Robinson 1986, 4).

A William Dobbin is mentioned again in 1613, when he was voted in as sheriff and referred to as ‘the elder’ (ROC 1569–1747, 35; McSkimin 2009, 413). The use of that term may be referring to the prominent William Dobbin, but we cannot be sure as he would then have been of an advanced age, having first held office as sheriff 43 years earlier. William’s tenure as sheriff did not go well and he was accused by a John McGalpeny of threatening to imprison him on false grounds (ROC 1569–1747, 35–6). Dobbin was placed under house arrest and then summoned to the mayor’s house and offered his freedom if he would just admit that he had made a mistake. Dobbin was given many chances to state that he was wrong, but instead he ‘most obstinately and stubbornly refused to confess’. Accordingly, he went to the court of the assizes where despite him ‘maintaining his own opinion’ he was found guilty of ‘many and sundry offences in the exercise of this office of sheriff’. These offences had been committed against the mayor and other persons, which resulted in William being dismissed from his office of sheriff and fined a hefty £40. The matter was passed back to the town court where, on 8 April 1614, William was dismissed from office and defined as being not ‘held or esteemed worthy or capable to have or to carry any office within’ the corporation of Carrickfergus. He was further ordered to make an account of all monies he had taken up in the name of the town and repay any that he could not prove to have been properly disbursed; and to make an apology before the court for his offence against the mayor, remaining under house arrest until he did so. William attended court again on 28 May and ‘craved remission for his former faults and offences committed against the mayor, whereupon he was set at liberty and his offences forgiven by the mayor and court’ (ibid, 36). He was also discharged of his £40 fine because of former monies he spent in service of the town and also because the court felt it would be to ‘the better maintenance and relief of himself, his wife, children, and family’. In June 1614 Anthony

Dobbins was voted into the position of sheriff for the next year (ibid, 92). He was followed in the position of sheriff, in 1618–19, by Nicholas Dobbin (ibid, 93).

Peace brought an influx of new immigrants to Carrickfergus and the period up to 1630 includes records of apprentices entering the town books by legally binding themselves to a variety of professional people there (ROC 1569–1747, 25–7). Apprentices are mentioned as coming from Ulster Gaelic areas beyond the bounds of Carrickfergus and also from Lincolnshire, Lancashire, and southern Scotland. The towns of Manchester and Ayr are specifically mentioned; it seems that the apprentices from Ayr in particular were engaged in serving out their time to gain the freedom of Carrickfergus, presumably in the hope of extending their family merchant businesses to this part of Ulster. That this was possible is shown in the case of Thomas Hunt from Manchester who, once he served out his apprenticeship of seven years under Carrickfergus merchant Joshua Wharton, was to have his freedom of the town purchased by the latter (ibid, 26). Trade merchants dominated the apprenticeships, but construction and manufacturing professions such as masons, butchers, chandlers, cutlers, shoemakers and locksmiths are mentioned, rounding out more of the occupations needed to help the burgeoning town function as a place people would want to live in. This substantial influx of what we presume were ‘New’ English protestants may well have changed the cultural and linguistic dynamic within Carrickfergus, hitherto dominated by families that most likely saw themselves as ‘Old’ English and regularly used the Irish language.

In July 1623, James Dobbin leased one acre of commonwealth land for 99 years (ROC 1600–1800, 156) located close to a brickyard and adjacent to a stream dividing it off from ‘Edengraney’ (Éadán Gréine – ‘the sunny brow’), which is modern- day Eden just east of Carrickfergus. The Dobbin family came to hold so much land to the east of the town that part of the area became known as Dobbinsland, and was shown as such on the 1780 grand jury map of Antrim (https 1). By 1624 Anthony Dobbin was being recorded as an alderman, but had not yet paid the entry sum for that position of ‘20 Nobles’, then equivalent to around £6. Anthony presumably paid what he owed as, in June 1626, he was elected as town mayor for 1626–27 (ROC 1569–1747, 93). At this point McSkimin records that Nicholas Dobbin left Carrickfergus c 1627 and moved to the Shane’s Castle area. This began Dobbin occupation of lands in Duneane parish, which runs between the northern shores of Lough Neagh and the Bann and includes the town of Toome. At that time Nicholas owned the

tower house that is now Dobbins Inn, it sometimes being referred to as Nicholas Dobbin’s Castle (ROC 1600–1800, 202–03, 208; McSkimin 2009, 151). A ‘little lane by Nicholas Dobbin’s Castle’ is mentioned in 1654 (ROC 1600–1800, 202) and this may be the gap shown on the 1575–85 town map between the tower house and the adjacent housing towards Market Place (between 6 and C on Fig 2). Nicholas’ departure to Duneane is the likely reason for a series of grants recorded on 2 July 1627 to what appear to be his sons James, Thomas and John. James (referred to in 1644 as James Fitz Nicholas) received the ‘deed of one Castle called Dobbin’s Castle North West side of the street leading to Castle Worragh’ (ROC 1600–1800, 208–09). This is the Dobbins Inn building, and the record states that the tower house later passed to an Anthony Dobbin, without identifying which Anthony is meant. Behind the tower house James received a garden on the North … together with 4 feet of land on the West … out of the garden plot bequeathed by Nicholas Dobbin to his reputed son Thomas Dobbin (ibid).

The use of the term ‘reputed’ is interesting (with its hint of illegitimacy) but perhaps we should not read anything into it. Thomas Dobbin (who was also referred to as Captain Thomas Dobbin, possibly indicating his captaincy of a merchant ship rather than soldiers) received three parcels of land from his father, which included a plot or tenement leased by Nicholas Dobbin to Jasper Happer late Burgess. And one other plot in the East parts called the Wheat Garden let by Nicholas Dobbin to Richard Child Burgess deceased (ibid, 211–12).

The third plot had been purchased by Nicholas from a William Savage and lay ‘ on the East side of North Street, extending backwards from said street the breadth of Anthony Dobbins House and of the Castle Garden (except the number of 4 feet reserved to James Dobbin) (ibid, 211).

These four feet must have been left to James to facilitate access from North Street to his garden behind the High Street tower house. Presumably access to lands behind High Street was limited, as can be seen in a court case of 1664 (PRONI D2225/7/1) when William (known as William ‘Fitzanthony’) Dobbin sued a tenant of James Fitz Nicholas Dobbin, alderman Matthew Johnson, in a matter that was not fully resolved until 1666 (see below). The 1627 grant also shows that Anthony Dobbin’s house was adjacent to the tower house

garden, and so to the tower house too. McSkimin (2009, 151) locates Anthony Dobbin’s house to the east of the tower house at number 9 High Street, and states that the house to the west (closer to North Street) had belonged to James Savage but was around that time bought by Nicholas Dobbin. Importantly, this identifies Anthony Dobbin’s house as being our building at modern number 10 High Street. John Dobbin is not explicitly mentioned as a son of Nicholas but, as he also received a grant of lands on 2 July 1627, we can be confident that he was related. John’s plot was said to be ‘in the East suburbs’ (ROC 1600–1800, 207). In 1629 Anthony Dobbin from 10 High Street leased lands off North Street that had passed, by 1670, to his son William Fitzanthony (ibid, 157), discussed further below.

The 1627 record also includes James Fitz Nicholas Dobbin receiving a ‘stone house or hall on the South East side of said Street’, likely to be the tower house that stood at 33 High Street. Sir Moses Hill, founder of the Hill family of Hillsborough, Co Down, who later became the marquesses of Downshire, rented that house from James Fitz Nicholas (ROC 1600–1800, 209) until his death in 1629. Hill’s son Arthur, from whom the present marquess descends, was probably born in Carrickfergus c 1601. McSkimin (2009, 412) records that local tradition maintained that Moses Hill was married to Alice Dobbin, daughter of William Dobbin, alderman of Carrickfergus, and not Alice McDonnell as is normally claimed by the Hill family. McSkimin (ibid) supported the tradition by pointing out that Moses Hill received 60 acres of lands at Carrickfergus ‘in right of his wife’. Hill did indeed receive 60 acres of lands in 1603 (ROC 1600–1800, 176), and the lease was, unusually, granted to ‘Moses Hill and Alice his wife’, suggesting that it was indeed her rights and not Hill’s that were the important factor in the decision. Like McSkimin, we have found no evidence that the McDonnell family held rights to any Carrickfergus Corporation lands. The granting of lands to a man and his wife is rare in the records, which would support the tradition that Alice was a Dobbin who carried rights and influence that Hill had not attained by then. The grant was remade in 1608 in the name of Moses Hill and ‘Alice his wife and her heirs’ (ibid, 204) again supporting the view that Alice Dobbin was the important link to the lands. Indeed, it may well show that Alice was the owner of the lands with Hill simply given a right to access them through his marriage to her. The probable Hill–Dobbin marriage, like the case of Eithne Mháire Faye, shows that women from established Carrickfergus families could be asset wealthy in their own right and that marriage to them was likely

viewed as an attractive prospect.

1630–1670

The future of the extended Dobbin family and the other members of the corporation and merchant class was fatally undermined in 1637 when, during the mayoralty of Richard Spearpoint, the customs rights of the town were sold to the crown for the sum of £3,000 (ROC 1569–1747, 40). This equated to around ten years’ worth of customs income to the town (McSkimin 2009, 158–60) and the plan was to use the money to buy land to enhance the town economically in lieu of customs revenues. However, there is no record of any lands being added to the corporation’s ownership via this £3,000. Centuries later McSkimin (ibid, 415) calls it a ‘vile action’ and blames Spearpoint personally, referring to him as ‘so vile a man’ whose memory ‘ought to perish in oblivion’. The loss of their customs rights and revenue in exchange for little or nothing, plus the rise of nearby Belfast as a commercial port, may be proposed as having undermined the future of Carrickfergus as an economic centre from that point on. Unfortunately, the loss of the customs income also fell at the beginning of a period of great troubles for the crown and the inhabitants of Ireland and Britain in general. The 1641 rising in Ireland and the English civil war led to more than a decade of great suffering, and the combination of this downturn with the loss of the customs monies must have been a heavy blow. In 1659 the matter was raised by the ordinary inhabitants of Carrickfergus when they put a number of complaints to the town council, one of which related to the sale of the customs rights 22 years earlier (ROC 1569–1747, 48). The inhabitants claimed that the town had received no monies for the sale and that they believed it was the policy of some to ‘plunge themselves in such debt (as they are now) on purpose to make them incapable of proceeding in law against’. They added that it is well known likewise that this town has for these many years past paid a great and heavy tax, which has kept many of the members thereof both poor and low, whilst others who are said the town’s debtors and eminent men, have gained and purchased to themselves vast estates.

This seems a clear accusation that at least some of the town’s eminent men had acted corruptly. McSkimin (2009, 159) stated that £1,300 of the 1637 customs sales of £3,000 was lent to John Davys of Carrickfergus but, when the corporation later acted to recover the amount from Davys, he brought them only one shilling in debt – a clear link it seems to the 1659 accusations by the townsfolk.

In 1644–45 a James Dobbin was named as one of several commissioners tasked with looking into the town’s finances and discovering any outstanding debts (ROC 1569–1747, 42–3); McSkimin (2009, 415) records that James Fitz Nicholas Dobbin was sheriff in the same year, and we may conclude that they are the same man. That an audit was carried out can be seen in the records of a court case between a John Lyttle and William Jordan in 1650, in which Lyttle claimed that an accounting of his and Jordan’s financial dealings was undertaken in May 1645 by James Fitz Nicholas Dobbin (ibid, 43). Dobbin was also sheriff in 1648, when he was voted in to replace Thomas Gravett (ibid, 89). During 1651 he was appointed to assist John Hounsell in managing the estate of the deceased George Savage to provide for his heirs until they came of age (ibid, 44). However, by February 1656 James had fallen foul of the corporation. Whilst assisting in a local court case it was alleged that Dobbin had uttered very injurious reproachful and execrable speeches then in open court, tending and conducing to the disquiet of the whole court and the obstructing of the public service, and especially towards Captain Roger Lyndon recorder of the said town (ibid, 45).

Dobbin was judged to have been given no cause for his utterances against Lyndon and was removed from his office of alderman and freedoms until he presented himself at the next Tholsel court when he was to make a public submission before the court and mayor. One of those that signed the order against James was his cousin William Fitzanthony. The available records do not show what the outcome was, but such verbal (and physical) assaults are recorded regularly throughout the Carrickfergus papers. They appear mostly to have been resolved with the office holders moving on in some fashion once an appropriate apology had been made or fine paid, and this seems to have been the case with James. In March 1656 he signed an affidavit to the effect that he had received from John Magee of Carrickfergus Yeoman, full satisfaction of the mortgage which I had upon the garden known by the name of Garden Komman, which Thomas King had in mortgage from Murtagh Woods of Carrickfergus, burgess deceased’ (ibid, 45).

The ‘Garden Komman’ is a rendering of the Irish comann/comán, meaning either ‘cattle-pound’ or ‘camomile’; we prefer camomile, placing part of the garden plot close to the seashore where that plant still grows locally on the sandier soil. We reject cam

and camán (‘crooked’ and ‘hurley stick/shepherd’s crook’) here as, though there was a land plot known as the Crooked Garden located adjacent to some Dobbin lands in the eastern suburbs, mentions of it in the town records 1650s–1680s do not give any Dobbin ownership, or other financial interest, with regard to it (ROC 1569–1747, 110; ROC 1600–1800, 201, 209). Consequently, agreeing with the Carrickfergus town records index (ROC 1569–1747, 144), we record the Crooked Garden and Garden Komman as two separate but nearby places. The 1656 document also provided that part of the garden was reserved to an Elizabeth, the widow of Donnell O’Cahan, for the term of her life and no longer. The personal names and place-names involved strengthen the view of Carrickfergus as still being a bilingual place during the mid-17th century with lands passing back and forth between Gaelic and Old English families. The O’Cahans (Ó Catháin) were a branch of that north-west Gaelic noble family that seems to have moved into Carrickfergus at an unidentified pre-Plantation date (we can guess 1300–1400s), in time becoming burgesses and even sheriff and town clerk. The Ó Catháin name is found in the Carrickfergus records as O’Cahan but was also often anglicised further to O’Kane. The O’Cahan/O’Kane family seem to have been located mostly on Cheston Lane. A Cornelius O’Kane is recorded on Cheston Lane in 1622 (ROC 1600–1800, 207), and in 1637 a Richard O’Kane was granted the ‘deed of an old Castle called Sandall’s castle on the west side of Cheston Lane’ (ibid, 210). That castle had belonged to the Old English Sendall family and was still in the hands of the O’Cahan/O’Kanes in 1685, when it was said to be ‘the corner house on the west side of Cheston’s Lane leading from the West Street to the Quay gate’ (ibid, 193). Richard seems to have been a common Carrickfergus O’Cahan name, with a Richard O’Kane recorded as town clerk in 1651 and a Richard O’Cahan recorded as town clerk in 1663, presumably being the same man on both occasions (McSkimin 2009, 272). Sir Richard O’Kane (governor of Minorca who died in 1735 and was buried in Westminster Abbey) knew that his family hailed from Cheston Lane and was also related to the Dobbin family of Moneyglass in Duneane parish (Hill 1873, 477–82), his mother being a Dobbin. O’Kane recorded many of the common Carrickfergus Dobbin names such as William, James, Anthony, and John still in use at Duneane in the first half of the 1700s. The Magees (Mag Aoidh) also came from a Gaelic élite family, having held the eponymous Islandmagee and had long association, over at least a few hundred years, with Carrickfergus and the crown. The names Murtagh Woods and

Elizabeth O’Cahan again point, like the earlier Brenin/Bréanainn Dobbin, to the ease of cultural exchange and intermarriage within the town –although most of these individuals’ relationships may well have been forged prior to the troubles of the 1640s and early 1650s.

A Thomas Dobbin was a member of the town council in 1659 and is recorded to have signed off on the list of complaints made in that year by the townsfolk against the council and eminent citizens. He is probably the same Thomas recorded (McSkimin, 2009, 415; ROC 1569–1747, 95) to have been a town sheriff in 1651–52 and probably the brother of James Fitz Nicholas. James was mayor of the town during 1662 (McSkimin 2009, 416) and McSkimin mentions that he ‘was of an ancient family’, but sold ale, and left behind him only one son. The mention of selling ale can be taken as an allusion to James running a tavern in one of his premises. This tavern may have been located within buildings purchased by his father from James Savage, located on the north side of High Street (C on Fig 2), now equating with the stretch of High Street occupied by part of Dobbins Inn and also Bell’s shop next door.

On 10 November 1662 William Fitzanthony witnessed a sealed affidavit by an Ann Orpin releasing the corporation from all claims made by the estate of her deceased husband John Orpin past sheriff of the town (ROC 1569–1747, 51). One year later, in November 1663, the town council debated whether to pay James Fitz Nicholas £30 for his salary when mayor just past, or more than that (ibid, 51–2). They agreed to restrict the payment to just £30, with those that signed the decision including Thomas Dobbin, who served as sheriff 1662–65, and William Fitzanthony, who was named as an alderman. In July 1665 Thomas Dobbin acted as deputy town recorder in making a record of a complaint made by Captain Solomon Faith that one Edmund Yeo had erected structures encroaching onto his lands ‘near the river leading to the west gate’ (ibid, 53). The matter was investigated by Dobbin, Edmund Davies and Richard Johnson, who found that the gable end of a dwelling house erected by Yeo had encroached five inches onto Faith’s land, and that the gable end of an associated ‘little back house or cabin’ had encroached by three feet. The town council then issued a judgement that ‘the respective persons any way concerned in the premises shall have and enjoy their respective lands and tenements and not otherwise’ (ibid). On the face of it the decision should have meant that Yeo would have to remove the encroaching structural elements unless he came to an agreement with Faith, but we are not told about any such agreement or other

outcome. The next year, 1666, saw another land dispute involving the Dobbin family. It involved a house then lived in by Alderman Matthew Johnson who had been mayor of the town in the 1620s. Due to his advanced age, Johnson had been granted a pension of £10 a year in 1658 (ibid, 47) and it seems that he was renting the house from James Dobbin and had encroached upon William Dobbin’s adjoining lands when building a new wall. The 1666 suit seems to have been part of a dispute ongoing since 1664. The wall was found to be ten inches onto William’s land, whereupon James’s wife Margaret (who we must presume attended the official measuring of the land boundaries and acted on behalf of her husband) requested that the new boundary be drawn from the wall to the known correct position further along ‘at the garden door’ (ibid, 54–5). If that was agreeable, Margaret undertook on behalf of her family and heirs that the said ten inches would be acknowledged forever as William Fitzanthony Dobbin’s land. William agreed and a record was made for posterity. In both the Dobbin/Johnson case and that of Faith/Yeo we see that townsfolk guarded their lands carefully and went to the extent of issuing proceedings over inches. The Dobbin case was resolved through good sense, not removing a wall over a matter of ten inches, and perhaps the Faith/Yeo case came to a similar agreement, although we may suspect that the offending back house was removed, it being three feet into Faith’s lands. That people could notice encroachments of simple inches must mean that plot boundaries were well recorded and marked, both physically on the ground and in some type of paper record. The investigators in the Dobbin case were said to have ‘strick down slacks’ along the new boundary, and we assume that this means striking in wooden stakes (possibly joined with a rope or chain) from which the accurate boundary could be assessed, and a decision made. Urban archaeologists should note this exactitude when attributing the status of ‘property boundary’ to rough gullies we find during excavations. As the sides of such gullies are prone to erosion then they are prone to movement and their use as fixed boundaries in places such as Carrickfergus, where citizens sued over inches, should be carefully considered. It is likely that such gullies were routinely paired with fencing/staking, or other immutable markers, that we do not always recognise as being important during archaeological excavations.

In April 1666 James Fitz Nicholas Dobbin had more legal matters to resolve when a John Hinch undertook that he owed James £100 (ROC 1569–1747, 56). However, Dobbin had been served with proceedings by a Margaret Patterson for a debt to her

of £40. Hinch undertook to indemnify Dobbin from the £40 and also from any other ‘damages, charges and costs’ that may arise from it. If Hinch could successfully indemnify Dobbin against Patterson’s seemingly ongoing losses then James Fitz Nicholas agreed to erase the £100 debt.

William Fitzanthony Dobbin was mayor during 1666–67, receiving £50 from the corporation for his expenses and, in February 1667, he ordered that, due to his advanced age and unfitness to work, Francis Fowell had only to pay half his town rent from then on (ROC 1569–1747, 57). Fowell’s wife was mentioned as being sick and blind, adding to their woes. By then, due to a mutiny of the castle garrison in May 1666, the government had asked the town to raise a militia regiment from its citizens and the mayor was appointed as captain of the regiment. In April 1667, Mayor (now also Captain) William Dobbin also acted as a legal justice alongside Sir Richard Kennedy (second baron of His Majesty’s Court of Exchequer in Ireland) when they oversaw the local assizes and determined that every soldier of the town militia should be paid sixpence a day for each day they were ‘drawn forth to exercise’ (ibid, 58). July 1667 saw William Dobbin sign the settlement of a dispute brought by Nicholas Wills and Robert Hogg against a John Addison (ibid). The dispute was over fences, with the petitioners claiming that Addison was trying to get them to maintain a fence that was on land occupied by him – their argument being that, prior to the wars of the 1640s, the town statutes decreed that all fences were to be maintained by those parties who occupied the lands on which the fences stood. The case was looked into, and several parties (Dalway, Magee and Wills) were ordered to dig ditches and create or maintain fences demarcating the bounds of their town lands near the sea. To this was added a note that any ditches or fences created within shares of town lands were a matter between landlords and tenants, not for the town. Addison is not mentioned, and we may assume that his lands and the fence in question were inside a share, not on its boundary. It seems that Addison was a tenant of Nicolas Wills’, with Wills being told to go and resolve the matter himself. With this record we again see that property boundaries were defined with fences, not gullies or ditches, though those were present on boundaries too. Dobbin is also recorded as having travelled to Dublin in 1667 with the Carrickfergus charter, presumably to have amendments made or to prove an entitlement, with it only being brought back to the town by mayor William Hill several years later in 1674 (ibid, 62).

On 14 February 1668 an order was made that a general assembly of the town would be called for 17

February in order to prepare for the upcoming assizes. During this it was noted that Carrickfergus did not have an official town clerk in place and one Hugh Smith, gentleman of Carrickfergus, was put forward for election to the position. A list is given of the people who voted for Hugh Smith. On the list William Dobbin is recorded as ‘Mayor of the Staple’ (ie head of the merchants’ guild), fitting with him having stepped down as town mayor the previous October. James Dobbin is recorded on the voting list as an alderman and Thomas Dobbin as a burgess. James Dobbin was said not to have been present and his vote to have been cast by Thomas Bates, gentleman (ibid). Smith was duly held to be elected as ‘Clerk of the Tholsel, otherwise called the Town Clerk’ with the Tholsel again said to be the town courthouse. On 29 June 1668 we have a record (ibid, 64) showing that men could retire from positions on the town council through reason of old age or infirmity, with both Michael Savage and Nicholas Wills stepping down from their positions of burgess due to being ‘rendered incapable of serving the town’ through old age. Neither James nor William Dobbin had yet reached that stage as both are recorded to still be alderman in 1669.

1670–1800

In December 1671 James Fitz Nicholas publicly acknowledged himself to owe £20 to church wardens John Wadman and Stephen Holland for the use of the poor of the parish (ROC 1569–1747, 66–7). It was agreed that if Dobbin paid the sum of £10 in one payment before 19 December 1672 the entire debt would be assumed to be paid. Apparently, a John Matthew, tanner, had left the £20 in his will to be given to the poor, seemingly through the church wardens. However, the money was lent to James Fitz Nicholas Dobbin who then passed the task onto a tenant of his, Henry Burns, to pay 20 shillings each Christmas towards the poor until the £20 was exhausted, Dobbin allowing Burns the money off his rent. It seems that the poor money was not paid and so Dobbin had to be chased by the church wardens. However, the bond was not paid until 17 December 1686, and not by James Fitz Nicholas but by a William Dobbin (presumably his only son mentioned below) instead. The 1674 list of tenants paying rent for corporation landholdings (McSkimin 2009, 438–39) includes a William and James Dobbin amongst the major landholders and, with lesser holdings, another James, the heirs of a deceased Thomas (likely a brother of James Fitz Nicholas), and a joint holding of a Thomas and James Dobbin. The lack of repayment of poor monies evidently did not hurt James Dobbin’s or Henry Burns’s status, as the former was listed (ROC 1569–1747, 74) as

the most senior town alderman in 1681 and Burns as a burgess. Seniority, we guess, was probably worked out by order of when a particular alderman was elected. James Fitz Nicholas was replaced as an alderman by Arthur Chichester in 1682, an event that must place his death or retirement sometime in 1681–82. McSkimin notes that James had ‘left only one son behind him’; we may identify the William Dobbin of 1686 as that man, and he too passed away not long after, in 1690. A town record for 1681 mentions that a William Dobbin (presumably the son of James Fitz Nicholas) had a parcel of land called ‘Garry Nibonoge’ in the east suburbs (ROC 1600–1800, 209) continuing the mentioning of Irish-language place-names at Carrickfergus, the name being Garraí na Bánóige, ‘garden of the green patch’. William was also recorded to have owned one shade adjoining in front of a house east side of High Street near Castle Worragh … now in possession of Henry Burns (formerly in possession of Sir Moses Hill) which said shade or pole extends the whole breadth of said house and extendeth 6 feet and 3 inches onto the street (ibid).

This also supports the idea that this William was James’s son, as the building fronted by the ‘shade’ was said in the same record to have belonged to James. At first reading the ‘shade’ seems to be an awning but it was said to later be in the ‘occupation of Mr. Edward Davey’, which could suggest a more substantial structure, perhaps with shade meaning shed; a small shed-like building is indeed shown in that location on the map of the town we suggest above is dated to 1575–85 (D on Fig 2). It may also be the building for which James Dobbin agreed Burns could pay reduced rent so the latter could disburse the poor monies mentioned above in 1671.

The 1681 list of town officials does not contain James’s cousin Alderman William Fitzanthony Dobbin, owner of number 10 High Street, and we presume that he was dead by that time. The list does contain a John Dobbin who is mentioned as being 23rd in seniority of 24 burgesses, making him a new entrant and possibly the son of the deceased William Fitzanthony. John Dobbin became a Carrickfergus sheriff in 1681–82, serving under the mayoralty of Samuel Webby (ROC 1569–1747, 75). Webby was said to have been from Lincoln and, on his death in 1684, left property he owned on North Street and Back Lane to his niece Elizabeth Gibbons, who was a daughter of William Dobbin and so probable sister of John (McSkimin 2009, 419). There is then a 30year gap during which no one in the wider family occupied high office until a Rigby Dobbin became sheriff of the town in 1711 (McSkimin 2009, 421).

Rigby was sheriff again in 1715 and 1718, before becoming mayor of Carrickfergus in 1724 (ibid, 422). He is the last of the family to be so recorded and McSkimin (ibid) mentions that Rigby lived at Duneane, Co Antrim, where he died in 1756, followed not long after by the death of his son James. That Rigby could live at Duneane and occupy positions of power in Carrickfergus suggests that he must also have had a town house in Carrickfergus and so lived between the two places.

A William and Humphrey Dobbin were said by McSkimin to have been appointed burgesses of Belfast in 1688 by James II and so believed to have been Catholic, with a Peter Dobbin being attainted in 1690 (presumably for similar reasons and support of James II) with his lands sold at auction in Dublin in June 1703. Those lands, listed then as including Drumsough, Lenagh, Ballynelurgan alias Ferelagh alias Ogully, Co Antrim (ibid), are now the adjacent townlands of Drumsough, Lenagh, Ballylurgan, Farlough and Aughilish, amounting to a very sizeable holding of some 2,300 acres just to the north-east of modern-day Randalstown. This could be taken to imply that the Dobbin family group that moved to that area from Carrickfergus was indeed Catholic. A William, Anthony and James Dobbin are listed as paying rent for lands around Carrickfergus in 1731 (ibid, 439) and a Nicholas Dobbin, son of Thomas, still held lands in Middle and North-East Divisions around Carrickfergus as late as 1756 (ibid, 422). However, Nicholas’ lands were then sold to an Edward Brice of Kilroot. McSkimin ends any substantial Dobbin land ownership at Carrickfergus in the late 18th century when a James, son of William Dobbin, moved to London in 1760 from where, in 1778, his son James sold the remaining lands around the town to Sir William Kirk (ibid).

DISCUSSION

Phase 1

The Phase 1 building was of stone construction and while we cannot be certain as to the height of this first phase, the evidence suggests that it was one and a half storeys at most. Dating evidence for this phase of building comes in three forms. The first and most crucial is that the building is shown on Carrickfergus town maps of the later 16th century. On the map of c 1560 the building is depicted as a single-storey thatched dwelling. From this map we cannot tell the material from which the building was created, all substantial buildings being shown as rendered or lime-washed, so hiding their wall fabric. The building does not appear to be shown on the Lythe map of 1567, which concentrated on the tower houses and added a few ‘lesser’ buildings only to show that these also existed in the town. The later

map, which we date to c 1575–85, does clearly show our building as a low structure adjoining the tower house at number 9. The building is roofed and does not adjoin the building at number 12, which is shown roofless but with upstanding walls. That number 12 and some other buildings in the town are shown roofless but surviving to full wall height could be taken to indicate that they were constructed from a durable material such as stone, with timber or earthen walling being more susceptible to either burning in times of trouble, or to mouldering away from the effects of water ingress in the absence of a roof. The second dating evidence is that of the pottery recovered from the limited excavation on site, it being a locally made ware dating somewhere between the 16th and 17th century. Finally, dendrochronological sample Q12747 from one of the Phase 2 roof timbers gave a date of ‘after 1587’, and the large lintel above the Phase 2 stairwell entrance gave a date of ‘after 1542’. Both may well be showing re-use of earlier building materials from the Phase 1 structure. The archaeological works did not detect any significant changes to the building within Phase 1, which seems to have remained unaltered up until the Phase 2 changes in the later 17th century. The building may have undergone internal change where stud walls and timber stairs could have been added or moved to change the layout, but we cannot see this at present. There also remains a possibility that the rear stair tower was constructed in the 16th century. This date would be based on the ‘after 1542’ lintel above the access to the stair on the first floor, which gives the impression of being in situ rather than having been reworked and moved there from elsewhere later in its life. The 1500s seem too early for a T-plan house with dedicated rear stair tower in Ulster but we must also consider that the return may have been initially created as additional space, rather than to solely accommodate a stair. During the late 1500s we know from the maps that the Phase 1 building did not adjoin number 12 next door. However, it is not possible to tell from the maps if this was because our building was shorter at the time or because number 12 was then a partial gap site. As much of the ground floor of number 10 remained in retail use throughout our project, we were unable to undertake the level of survey and excavation necessary to definitively answer that question. However, limited examination of the front façade at the point where numbers 10 and 12 adjoin seemed to show that the stone quoins there belonged to number 12 and were butted by number 10. If that is correct, then our building must have been shorter in the later 1500s, at around 10m in length as compared to the present 13m. Consequently, the rear extension may date to the

1500s as part of an original layout more akin to an L-plan, which was then extended in the later 1600s to adjoin number 12. The later extension would have made a pre-existing L-plan into a T-plan, with the rear return becoming a dedicated central stair tower within a new symmetrical building layout. Based on the historical evidence we know that Anthony Dobbin occupied this building from the late 16th century up until his move to the Randalstown area in 1627. It then passed to his son William Fitzanthony who owned, and presumably occupied, it until the mid-1670s. Neither man was responsible for the Phase 2 works. We do not know which Dobbin owned it in the 16th century prior to Anthony, but it may have been the James recorded as holding the office of sheriff four times in the period 1582–93.

Phase 2

The morphology of the staircase and the dendrochronological dating of structural timbers places the next phase of construction in the later 1670s/80s. Present evidence suggests that this phase saw number 10 extended to adjoin number 12 next door and also extended upwards to the same height as number 12, sharing its gable wall. Hence both

buildings were two and a half storeys, with the same roof pitch of 52°. The stair tower was either added at this time or the extension saw it remodelled into a central rear stair tower from an earlier L-plan rear return. The stair tower had a roof pitch of 45°, running perpendicularly into the main building at garret height. The fabric seems to have been an allstone build at this stage, but we cannot rule out the use of brick detail now lost at features such as windows, doorways, and chimneys. One panel of earlier brickwork rebuilt into the Phase 3 brickwork could be part of a Phase 2 red brick chimney stack. Paint analysis was undertaken on the staircase (by Decowell Restoration and Decoration) revealing 11–12 layers of paint and varnish (Fig 10). However, the analysis showed that the stairs were originally presented as bare wood, only being painted from the mid-1700s onwards when they received a first layer of lead white paint. Our dating of the stairs to the period 1676–88 is based on the tree-ring evidence for the 52° roof that we believe was installed at the same time; certainly the roof originally tied into timbers that also supported the flooring which the stairs were designed to access. This 1676–88 date is further supported by dendrochronological dating of a small lintel that supported the uppermost part of

Fig 10 Late 17th-century stairs undergoing conservation works by Decowell Restoration and Decoration.

the stairs to ‘after 1636’, which, due to historical events, places that date into the 1660s at the earliest. The renovation of the building altered it into a larger and more imposing town house with, we presume, a central hall leading to an open staircase accessing the important rooms on the first floor. To a degree, the stair tower also worked to deepen the house, with visitors walking through the building to access the rooms above. The room layout is not currently known but must have been facilitated through the use of stud walling; evidence for the replacement of earlier stud walls could be seen on the uppermost floor. William Fitzanthony Dobbin is absent from the list of town officials in 1681 and is last mentioned, as far as we are aware, in 1674. Consequently, he is unlikely to have undertaken the works and they may well have been carried out by a son intent on making his mark on the property. That son may have been the John Dobbin listed as a Carrickfergus burgess in 1681. Whoever undertook the works, the desire seems to have been to create a grander residence, perhaps one in which visitors could be more satisfactorily entertained and one whose owners felt a need to either maintain or enhance their social status. The addition of more space within the building may also be demonstrating an increased wish for privacy, and the creation of a grading of access within the layout. The Dobbin tower house at 33 High Street had a phase of renovations marked by a QUB dendrochronological date of precisely 1683, taken from a timber recovered during excavations there during the 1970s (David Brown, pers comm, 2023). This may help refine our Phase 2 dating, as the buildings were owned by cousins who may have shared resources, but we cannot be sure. The number 33 tower house is shown in the Philips town map cartouche of 1685 as a tall building with turrets and was still upstanding in 1837, when it was described in the Ordnance Survey memoir as one of the original houses, shown in plan as Dobbin’s ... still in perfect preservation … on the east side of the street … from which it is distinguished merely by two small square turrets, one at each angle in front (Day & McWilliams 1996, 30).

This record has been said to refer to the Dobbins Inn tower house (Patrick 2020, 119–20) but clearly refers to the other Dobbin tower on the opposite, eastern side of the street (Robinson 1986, 11). The buildings at numbers 9, 10 and 33 High Street were not the only Dobbin buildings in the town. The family also owned properties at the eastern and western ends of High Street, at Market Place, North Street and Cheston Lane (Fig 2).

Phase 3

At this point the building underwent another heightening of its roof and further renovations, which created a full third storey from the half-storey garret. This phase appears to have represented fairly extensive works with the reconstruction of the front façade in red brick at first- and second-floor levels, as well as works to the rear walling. The extensive re-modelling of these walls suggests that Phase 2 windows were removed and replaced, perhaps with dormer and/or bay windows on the front elevation. The roof was raised by c 1m onto the new brick walling with a reduced pitch of c 30 . The stair tower roof was also raised by c 1m. Phase 3 is more difficult to date but, based on the new brickwork, seems to fit somewhere from the later 1600s to the earlier 1700s. It may have been carried out by the Rigby Dobbin prominent 1715–24. Number 12 next door was also raised in brick, and it is just possible that this phase was necessitated by damage caused to the buildings by the Williamite bombardment of the town during the siege of 1689; the bombardment was said to have caused widespread damage, the town being all ‘smothered with dust and smoke occasioned by the bombs’ (McSkimin 2009, 66). Thereafter the building saw phases of works during the 1800s, including new upper rooms and the second rear stair tower, but we have not tracked the owners in any detail apart from to find that it belonged to the Alexander family, who may have added the second rear stair tower, and then the Kirks.

CONCLUSIONS

The identification of a 16th-century house beside a tower house in an urban Ulster context is rare, if not currently unique, and the potential for number 12 High Street to also be at least 17th-century in date leads to the conclusion that there are almost certainly more ancient buildings in Carrickfergus awaiting discovery behind modern façades. The presence of a later 17th-century external stair tower with surviving staircase is important in an Irish context. The historical research has allowed us to tie a household to the building and identify it as a home of the Dobbin merchant family between the 16th and the late 18th century. The evidence suggests that the house has undergone major rebuilds/renovations every 100–150 years, from c 1550 to the present, something surveyors should keep in mind when studying similar structures. The building may indeed be older than the mid-1500s, as could the tower house next door, with both possibly dating back into the earlier 1400s, when the Dobbin family is first recorded in the town. In that scenario, the house may have begun its life as an early 15th-century hall-type residential building associated with the tower house,

as a shop/warehouse, or as a separate house with ground floor split between retail and accommodation plus more accommodation in a half-floor above.

Examination of the town records in relation to the Dobbin and other families show that Carrickfergus was dominated by Old English families until the mid-1600s. By then, an influx of northern English and southern Scottish migrants had probably begun to change the communal culture of Carrickfergus to that of an overtly Protestant, English-speaking town. Before that time Carrickfergus appears to have been bilingual, with English used where preferred and required, but Irish being the dominant language used to name the surrounding agricultural landscape and even the buildings within the town. From the 1620s some Old English families were leaving Carrickfergus. This was possibly due to the economic or social reasons discussed above, but it is worth noting that the landlords of the lands they moved to were the Clandeboye O’Neills and Antrim McDonnells. Both these landlords were of the Gaelic élite, and we may be seeing a drive on their part to attract Old English Catholic tenants. Although women are not recorded as holding any elected council positions, it seems clear that they could, and did, hold substantial rights in Carrickfergus where their status as citizens of the corporation saw them hold property and legal entitlements. Consequently, we must use terms such as ‘freeman’ with caution and aim to deploy it in its wider sense of town citizens rather than simply males. The beehive houses shown surrounding the tower houses and other substantial buildings on the 16th-century maps are often attributed to the ‘Irish’, normally viewed as being only the poorer residents undertaking menial jobs in the town (Ó Baoill 2008, 11, 14–15, 95). However, this paper demonstrates that people who were clearly Irish, of both sexes, owned property and substantial houses in Carrickfergus. Based on that, it is clear that Irish residents occupied higher social positions and could offer an attractive proposition to prospective marriage partners. Hence, the issue of who lived in the beehive houses, if they are all indeed houses, should be re-examined. Sparky Booker (2020, 147–48) has noted that language was not ‘a fundamental determinant of ethnicity’ in the four shires surrounding late medieval Dublin. The same seems true for Carrickfergus where, until at least the early to mid-1600s, the town had its own urban ethnicity; as long as you were a free citizen, you had rights and an identity based primarily upon being ‘of Carrickfergus’. Consequently, leading families such as the Dobbins appear to have used the Irish language, and personal names, but only alongside firmly anchoring themselves as being Anglo-

Norman/Old English. This is reflected not only in the Dobbin use of the patronymic ‘Fitz’ but also in their houses; whereas many of the tower houses in the town had sported ‘Irish’ triple merlons on their battlements, the Dobbin family used single ‘English’ merlons. With the later 17th-century renovations at numbers 9 and 10 High Street, as far as we can tell, the Dobbin buildings seem to have stepped away from any overt statement of ethnicity and instead reflected a wish to portray a modern town-house identity as part of a social and economic class to which they felt they belonged. Thus their buildings remained, hidden in plain view, until rediscovered as part of the Carrickfergus Townscape Heritage Initiative.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

We would like to thank Elaine and Kim Hunter, without whom the regeneration project and archaeological research would not have happened. We also acknowledge the other funders involved, the members of the THI Board, and the hard work done by Frank McGrogan and Philippa Martin to get many of the THI projects off the ground and over the line. Architect Stephen Salley expertly guided the number 10 project from planning to completion, and the build contractor Stephen Wylie also lent valuable help and patience throughout the build, survey, and excavations. All deserve much credit in facilitating this paper. On the archaeological side we are extremely grateful to Terence Reeves-Smyth for his expert input on the stairs, to David Brown on the dendrochronological dates and discussion of them, to Déaglán Ó Doibhlin for the Irish language spellings and derivations, and to Decowell Restoration and Decoration for their specialist work on the stairs. Many thanks also go to Cormac Bourke for putting us on the trail of the 15th-century Mac Eochadha poem, and for his edits, which improved our paper.

REFERENCES

Booker, S 2020 Cultural Exchange and Identity in Late Medieval Ireland, The English and Irish of the Four Obedient Shires. Cambridge. Creighton, O 2006 ‘Castles of communities: medieval town defences in England, Wales and Gascony’, Château Gaillard 22 (2006), 75–86. Day A & McWilliams, P (ed) 1996 Ordnance Survey Memoirs of Ireland, Volume Thirty-Seven, Parishes of County Antrim XIV, 1832, 1839–40. Belfast.

Hill, G 1873 An Historical Account of the McDonnells of Antrim. Belfast.

Hoy, P forthcoming Place Names of Carrickfergus and Broadisland, Logainmneacha Charraig Fhearghusa & Bhráid an Oileáin. Belfast.

McNeill, T E 1981 Carrickfergus Castle. Belfast. McSkimin, S 2009 History and Antiquities of Carrickfergus. (facsimile edn). Belfast.

Ó Baoill, R 2008 Carrickfergus, The Story of the Castle and Walled Town. Belfast.

Patrick, L 2020 ‘Dobbins Inn, Carrickfergus: a tower house uncovered’, UJA 75 (2019–20), 114-25. Robinson, P 1986 Irish Historic Atlas No. 2, Carrickfergus. Dublin.

Simpson, M L & Dickson, A 1981 ‘Excavations in Carrickfergus, Co. Antrim, 1972–79’, Medieval Archaeology 25.1 (1981), 78–89.

Manuscript sources

British Library (BL) Cotton Augustus I ii 42: A coloured plan, or bird’s-eye view, of ‘Kragfergus’ Town and Castle; drawn about 1560.

National Archives (TNA) MPF 1/98: The Plat of Knokefergus 1596.

National Library of Ireland (NLI) MS 3137 (42): The Ground Plaine of Carrick Fergus with the Strengthening of the Castle if thought Necessary 1685.

Public Record Office of Northern Ireland (PRONI) D2225/7/1: Petition to the Mayor & Corporation of Carrickfergus.

Trinity College Dublin (TCD) MS 1209(26): A Plan of the Town of Craggfargus 1567.

Trinity College Dublin (TCD) MS 1209(27): A Plan of the Towne of Carrigfergus 1567.

Online sources

Clarke, S 2015 https://antrimhistory.net/hurling-inAntrim-by-Seamus-Clarke/ https 1 – https://www.lbrowncollection.com/irelandgrand-jury-maps-antrim/ https 2 –https://www.libraryireland.com/names/od/odreain.php

ROC (Records of Carrickfergus) 1569–1747 – As Copied from the Originals by Richard Dobbs, Dean of Connor and Rector of the Parish of Carrickfergus in the Year 1785: https://www.midandeastantrim.gov.uk/things-todo /museums-arts/carrickfergus-museum-and-civiccentre/collections -and-research/carrickfergus-old-town-records1569-1747/

ROC (Records of Carrickfergus) 1600–1800 –Carrickfergus Urban District Council Records of Title of the Corporate Property 1911: https://www.midandeastantrim.gov.uk/things-todo/museums-arts/carrickfergus-museum-and-civ ic-centre/collections-and-research/carrickfergusold-town-records-1600-1800/